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FALLEN STARS 



By LUCIUS M. BEEBE 



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FALLEN STARS 



FALLEN STARS 



By 
LUCIUS M. BEEBE 




THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
BOSTON 






Copyright 1921 

By 

THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING CO. 



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0)C!,A627303 



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To 

My Friend 

HAROLD L. SPOONER 

This Book 

is 
Inscribed 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/fallenstarsOObeeb 



The author wishes to thank the editors of 

The American Poetry Magazine, 

The Boston Evening Record, 

The Berkshire Courier 

for permission to use certain of the poems which originally 

appeared in their pages. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Sonnets 1 to 20 

Hespera 21 

To An Athlete 22 

First Snow 2,3 

To Christopher Marlowe 24 

Marsh Mists 25 

Walter Hampden as Hamlet 26 

Omar Khayyam 27 

In a Volume of Lucretius 28 

After the Storm 29 

Connecticut by Night 30 

Leaves 31 



FALLEN STARS 



SONNETS 



FALLEN STARS 



I dare not yet pronounce my sudden joy 
Since misery may tread upon delight, 
And passion may but serve as a decoy 
To lure the soul into the troubled night 
Of dull despair, and yet is manifest 
Within me an unprecedented grace. 
Emotional, desirous, unexpressed, 
Longing for some unknown, divine embrace. 

Thus many passions like a rising sea 
Concentered in my soul, that I might cast 
My hope on things undreamed of and above 
The level of our frail mortality, 
Have swept across the barriers of the past 
And whispered warnings of an unfelt love. 



[1] 



FALLEN STARS 



II 



We two met in ages long ago 

And loved beneath these same nocturnal spheres, 

For memory in absence but endears, 

And our reunion, lingeringly slow. 

Has been the only hope that we could know 

Transcending all the passion of these years 

Of interval, and our last parting tears 

Assured us but of rapture after woe. 

Yet this premeditated miracle 
Can be but passing. To go drifting on 
Down endless tides to some forgotten shore 
Is fated. Would the ultimate farewell 
Might lead but to complete oblivion 
And dim forgetfulness forever more. 



[2] 



FALLEN STARS 



III 



The chaos of the dim, primeval world 

Is re-created in my paradise, 

For there the image of your beauty lies 

And all the phantom visions that were whirled 

Unceasingly within my mind are hurled 

In shapeless ruin to the boundaries 

That pale the senses, and my humbled eyes 

Have seen the banners of my ideals furled. 

For all the beauties that are in your face 
Have put to flight all beauties that are past, 
And love has sought with his diviner grace 
To reconcile me with this change and cast 
Behind me every passion-quelling thought 
That may disturb the vision he has wrought. 



[3] 



FALLEN STARS 



IV 



I will not ask as did Semiramis, 
In name and empire, immortality; 
Or Faustus in his soul-torn constancy- 
Perpetuation in a single kiss. 
I will but beg that from the deep abyss 
Of my despair and my heart's poverty 
You draw me with one priceless smile, and I 
Will find my immortality in this. 

For beauty is not held within the bourn 
That pales our restlessness and futile strife, 
And love may flee from the straitened place 
That marks our dull existence and forlorn 
And rise above this dim, chaotic life 
To conquer vision, time, and endless space. 



[4] 



FALLEN STARS 



V 



That you may love me is the single hope 
That dwells within my passion-haunted brain. 
You are my rapture, and the only pain 
That rises with my happiness to cope 
Is that you may not care, and that to hope 
The doors of paradise you may not deign. 
Then were I worthy of the gods' disdain 
And of the darkness in which I should grope. 

To fear and falter is the heritage 

Of mortal minds, and soul-engrossing love 

Is granted but to few in every age. 

Thus all the powers of the sky conspire 

To curse us with a hope we cannot prove, 

A fear we may not alter by desire. 



[S] 



FALLEN STARS 



VI 



Let us go forth to meet the pulsing dawn 
Ere light and melody have filled the earth, 
Ere purple clouds have lit the heaven's girth 
And the gray shadows of the night are gone. 
For we should see the new day at its birth 
And know the glory and the pure delight 
Of its redeeming triumph over night 
To gauge the measure of the daylight's worth. 

Let us know every ecstasy and pain 
That rides upon the swirling tides of life. 
Tears, and rejoicings, and contentions rife 
Are passions we may never feel again ; 
For they will fade and perish in their strife 
And only our devotion will remain. 



[6] 



FALLEN STARS 



VII 

I would forsake unending paradise 

If it would serve you, but this may not be; 

For you are sure of your felicity, 

But I, whom fortune and the gods despise, 

Am granted no such opportunities 

Since heavenly happiness is not for me; 

And thus I am denied eternally 

The hope of winning favor in your eyes. 

Alas ! your very beauty means distress 
To me, who love you, for I may not hope 
With so divine a loveliness to cope, 
And if your boundless radiance should bless 
The blackness of the night in which I grope, 
I were not worthy of that happiness. 



[71 



FALLEN STARS 



VIII 

I can but say that if some last defeat 

O'erwhelm me with its burden of distress, 

If all the rapture and the happiness 

Of life and love shall sound a far retreat, 

And all the loveliness that I repeat 

Is yours shall never in this vain world bless 

My poor existence, still will I confess 

My meager lot of ecstasy complete. 

For I have seen you and have known your ways, 
Lived with you and adored your noble grace, 
My pulsing breath has burned upon your face, 
Your joy been mine, your sorrow too, in days 
That can no more return. Your vision stays 
Nor can it know death's infinite embrace. 



[8] 



FALLEN STARS 



IX 



Uncalculating of life's loss or gain 
Weighed in the balances of circumstance, 
Resenting not the tyranny of chance, 
That dominates my state, since it is vain, 
My weary soul, still seeking to attain 
The full estate of its inheritance. 
Progresses ever in a slow advance 
To gain the triumph of some higher plane. 

The river of existence flooding by 
Bears me relentlessly upon its tide. 
Under a canopy of sunset sky 
Toward a far horizon, broad and wide, 
Forever nearer to the ocean's blue, 
And yet forever more remote — from you. 



[9] 



FALLEN STARS 



X 



Thus would the final vigil of the years 
Be consummate as the divine ideal 
Of all existence if the dumb appeal 
Of love unspoken and of unwept tears 
And of the prayers that reach no mortal ears 
Be granted and made manifestly real, 
Ere cold oblivion engross its seal 
Upon the bond of undetermined fears. 

If I shall ever realize this dream 
Of final beauty, which the evening glow 
Paints so sublimely fair and in which seem 
The forms of loveliness that long ago 
Lighted those years I never can redeem, 
I cannot understand and may not know. 



[10] 



FALLEN STARS 



XI 



Too well I know how the sweet tenderness 
Which floods the passion of our close embrace 
Must vanish, how the radiance of your face 
Must be withdrawn, and the enraptured press 
Of heart to pulsing heart. Our happiness 
Is of an hour only, and your grace 
Must fade into the magnitudes of space 
And with it the dear joy of your caress. 

Live we and love. The morrow may conclude 

Our aspirations and our rapt delight. 

Then in the inaccessible solitude 

Of dawn, upon the last winds of the night 

There shall be echoes carried of your name, 

And thoughts of our devotion's unquenched flame. 



[11] 



FALLEN STARS 



XII 

You had forgotten and you could not know 
How I had placed you in my dreams before 
Me, where the firelight on the floor 
Outlined where we had sat together. So 
The steady lamp grew duller and more low 
And I sat there alone and slowly wore 
Away the lingering evening and bore 
The memories and dreams of long ago. 

Remembrances of days that can no more 
Refresh the yearning of my weary soul 
Are but the echoes on a distant shore 
Of an interminable surge's roll, 
Sweeping a song in its eternal roar 
Of destiny beyond our own control. 



[12] 



FALLEN STARS 



XIII 

Some day this cruel error will be plain. 
Then you will realize my suffering, 
And in the sorrow of remembering 
Will give me recompense for all my pain. 
Then shall my dross be turned to golden gain 
Of riches, and the riches I will fling 
Before you, as my spirit's offering 
Of rapture at our union once again. 

Oh, may the lingering interval be brief 

Which damns me with its slow oppressiveness 

Ere the transmuting joy of your caress 

Brings to my tortured soul its sweet relief. 

Then shall the sword-wounds that have made my grief 

Be healed — and with them my untold distress. 



[13] 



FALLEN STARS 



XIV 

And shall I then return the dreams you gave 

Since you no longer will share yours with me? 

For my poor dreams in their entirety 

Have been of you and I have been their slave. 

Ungoverned am I with no love to crave, 

No joy in freedom now that I am free, 

And still I wander seeking ceaselessly 

The withered hopes that you alone could save. 

You have not mocked my impotent despair 
With idle fancy, nor has my desire 
Been bold. Then wherefore has the newborn fire 
That welded us together waned — the prayer 
Half uttered on my lips been rent in air? 
Why was I bid no longer to aspire? 



[14] 



FALLEN STARS 



XV 

Why should the world require my agony 

When every passion, every joy and grief 

Is its possession, why cannot relief 

Be mine and let my life from pain be free? 

For love's reward is only mockery 

And disillusionment of my belief 

My only gain. Oh mercifully brief 

Let the duration of my anguish be. 

Too well I knew that my unhappy soul 
Must fall distracted from its boasted height. 
Too full of hope I had outwinged the flight 
That was inscribed for me upon the scroll 
Of life. I must again dwell in the night, 
A helpless atom in a changeless whole. 



[15] 



FALLEN STARS 



XVI 

Now even you must go, and this last press 
Of lip and hand to trembling hand 
Was granted by some ultimate command 
From which there is no fleeting nor redress, 
No mercy for the heart in faint distress, 
And I can seek but some remoter land 
Where all is lost in endless quiet, and 
Oblivion alone is happiness. 

Yet linger with me through these final hours 

Ere the last echoes of triumphant song 

Have died away in distance. Scents of flowers 

Are scattered by the river banks along. 

And through the twilight's marsh-arisen haze 

Appear dim images of bygone days. 



[16] 



FALLEN STARS 



XVII 

Perhaps we loved in some forgotten sphere 

Where true devotion and subHme desire 

Were changeless and the elemental fire 

Of love burned always, and existence here 

Is but a memory of days so dear 

That their remembrance can alone inspire 

The soul to deeper passion, to aspire 

To broader life and raptures more sincere. 

Long after we are ultimately parted 
Remembrance of this last devoted hour 
Will be but mockery to the broken-hearted 
And at the blows of drab despair the tower 
Of all my cloud-built dreams will fall again 
Into a deep abyss of silent pain. 



[17] 



FALLEN STARS 



XVIII 

Now has the final, ultimate despair 
Foreclosed the portals of my dearest dreams. 
Winter has chilled and no warm spring redeems 
The withered garlands that had been so fair 
And I have lost what was to me most rare. 
The stricken garden of existence seems 
To lack the water of celestial streams 
And yet I planted my devotion there. 

O futile hope — cannot embodied grief 

Display your chill, deluding vanity? 

Is life so short that frail mortality 

Can give the soul no atom of relief? 

Then let the scroll of sadness be more brief 

And death be but an end to agony. 



[18] 



FALLEN STARS 



XIX 

Beneath the midnight wonder of the skies 
I have laid bare the longing of my soul 
That the far spheres in their eternal roll 
Might comfort me with their sublime replies. 
But the chill stars have mocked my futile cries 
And dull despair has flashed from pole to pole. 
Blazoned upon the everlasting scroll, 
And echoed by infinite melodies. 

It cannot matter then this distant scorn : 

Annihilation cannot heap derision 

Upon the withered garlands of a vision 

Created but to be a hope forlorn ; 

The broken heart — the soul's complete division 

Cannot be added to a passion torn. 



[19] 



FALLEN STARS 



XX 

You seem to call me from some distant place 
And I would come to you but for a portal 
Which intervenes between divine and mortal, 
Witholding me from your ethereal grace. 
It is not merely interval or space, 
But some rude jest conceived within the skies 
That can exclude me from the paradise 
Which is embodied in your radiant face. 

Thus life is the irrevocable lie 
Designed but as a snare and a deceit, 
And hope leads on to impotent retreat 
The mimes in this eternal tragedy, 
Who disillusioned or believing die 
Forg-otten in the ultimate defeat. 



[20] 



LYRICS 



FALLEN STARS 



HESPERA 

The sun is down; 

A purple afterglow 

Dying from cloud to cloud and wave to wave 

Reflects the regal splendor of his fall, 

And where the white foam, moaning o'er the reef 

Sings an eternal song of the creation, 

A warning bell sounds vespers. 

Far away 

A lightship winks reply. 



[21] 



FALLEN STARS 



TO AN ATHLETE 

Had you but dwelt at Athens in her might 
Or Lacedsemon known your splendid grace 
The fair proportioned glories of that race 
Had been perfected in your wing-shod flight, 
And ancient Helas in her proud delight 
Acclaimed you an immortal. Your swift pace 
Had won for you eternally a place 
Among the victors in the longed-for height. 

But now the dull decadence of our age 
Can realize but the unbounded strength 
Embodied in your form, that through the length 
Of all the years has been preserved to be 
More than a priceless wealth of heritage — 
A joy to last to all eternity. 



[22] 



FALLEN STARS 



FIRST SNOW 

Under a fleeting shield of storm-laced clouds 

Sweep the swift chariots of winter wind 

Down the dim valley with its clustered sheaves, 

Driving before them in a cheerless rout 

The autumn's leaves, unlovely, withered, sere ; 

And in the lonely passes of the hills 

The chill blast moans a song, a wailing dirge 

Of melancholy madness to the trees. 

Day fades before the whirlwind's wild approach ; 

And blasting all it strikes, the dreary gale 

Bears in its bosom the first flakes of snow. 



L-oJ 



FALLEN STARS 



TO 
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE 

Undying was the pen and eloquent 
Portraying Tamberlaine's ambition curst, 
His aspirations and his burning thirst 
For spacious power and world-wide regiment, 
That sketched conflicting passion's bitter plagues 
When Faustus in his midnight darkened cell. 
Distracted by desire's confounding spell, 
Drained off damnation to the bitter dregs. 

The world still grasps from out the drama's stream 

The high impassioned purpose in your heart, 

And wanders with you to far Samarcand, 

Or Babylon, or Persia's distant strand 

To drink the living waters of your art 

And catch your foaming fountain's silver gleam. 



[24] 



FALLEN STARS 



MARSH MISTS 

With still fingers of death 

They writhe among the shadows of the marsh ; 

Their fever-laden veil 

Is heavy with the lowland's chill ; 

And in their fatal breath are borne 

Dim secrets of forgotten lands. 



[25] 



FALLEN STARS 



WALTER HAMPDEN 

AS 

HAMLET 

Swift rolled the scenes to their ensanguined end, 
Yet ere your prince had reached his tragic goal 
The inmost hazards of his world-sick soul 
Were drawn with all the grace your art could lend 
Into the character's impassioned whole, 
And ere that ill-starred life its worth could spend 
Subtly with its sad gentleness to blend 
Loathing and indecision was your role. 

Imperially calm you are and fair, 
Sweet prince, and yet you are not wholly free, 
As in the vengeful quest of your desire. 
Renouncing all to which you most aspire. 
You bow 'neath circumstance's tyranny 
And thread the mazes of profound despair. 



[26] 



FALLEN STARS 



OMAR KHAYYAM 

To him the stars in mystic language told 

The tale of human fate and destmy ; 

The answer to creation's mystery 

In their eternal courses was unrolled. 

And when the midnight arch of heaven's pale span 

Flung to all space its star-strewn canopy, 

In those dim milestones of infinity 

He read the vast futilty of man. 

The lyric beauty of his pulsing song 

Bears in its rhythm an undying fire, 

And in those cadences is swept along 

The throbbing of a soul made to aspire 

To nobler things than man-made right or wrong 

And sensual fulfillment of desire. 



[27] 



FALLEN STARS 



IN A VOLUME 

OF 

LUCRETIUS 

O soul serene, no final goal is thine; 

There is no high attainment, no advance 

For thee to win; the force of circumstance 

Forbids thee to aspire or to repine. 

Yet undergo with head unbowed and high 

The chill of death, the vanity of life, 

And hear among the sounds of gainless strife 

The song of all creation sweeping by. 

Sleep, for the passing of eternal time 

Is all that can await thee ; know no thought 

Of life unconquerable and sublime, 

For in the primal dimness of the womb 

The fire that woke within thee was but taught 

The final hush of the engrossing tomb. 



[28] 



FALLEN STARS 



AFTER THE STORM 

The last thin drops of moisture patter down 

Against the brilHance of the setting sun, 

And o'er the hills the fast retreating clouds 

Form backgrounds for the lightning's rapier thrusts. 

Then through the fresh cooled atmosphere and damp, 

While swaying on some leafy, dripping twig, 

A bird uplifts its voice in vesper song. 



[29] 



FALLEN STARS 



CONNECTICUT BY NIGHT 

Down shining roads we sped until the hills, 

Silver and moonlit on our either hand, 

Seemed but to float upon the risen haze 

Of marsh mists that clung whitely to their sides, 

And the low-hanging trees rushed darkly by 

Save where the headlights showed a verdant green 

To form a lane, impenetrably dark. 

Towns dead with sleep seemed passed ere they were reachea, 

And where the hillslopes met below the road. 

Red and unshielded in their sudden glare. 

The lime-kilns flashed, unearthly and alone. 

Like blazing outposts of the coming dawn. 

And then were lost behind our onward flight. 

A paper train drowned out our motor's blast 

And passed upstate to bear the morning news 

To waking farms and country villages. 

The chill night wind swept through our ruffled hair 

And bore a message of the mystery 

Of hidden swamps and long-forgotten lands 

Until we rode through lowlands where the air 

Was dank with mist and loud with croaking frogs, 

And then our road, unfalteringly smooth. 

Broadened, and racing down the swift descent. 

To lowland cities far below the hills. 

We swept triumphant down the crimson dawn. 



[30] 



FALLEN STARS 



LEAVES 

As twin leaves in a treetop blown 
Formed but to love eternally, 

Then by the autumn whirlwind strown 

Into the distant and unknown, 

Singly, broken, and alone, 
So were we. 



[31] 



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